Barretos Cancer Hospital wanted to let the entire country know of its relevance – currently the largest cancer hospital in Latin America. Patients from all 27 States travel for hours and even days by bus to be treated there. That is when we discovered that there was an airport just 5 miles away from the hospital. But it did not have commercial flights. Could we extol the hospital’s relevance to the point of opening up this airport? Could we move people to demand this flight? Thus, the Flight Against Cancer was born.

To move the entire country and support the hospital we created a website with tools to amplify the demand for the flight. Through it, people could book a seat in a Facebook petition that shared the campaign video on their timeline and also sent emails directly to the airlines. Thus, the spotlight turned to the airport and the hospital and the cause was shared millions of times throughout the social media becoming newsworthy.

Meanwhile, TV and radio stations, newspapers, magazines and websites donated space for us to provoke the airlines and invite more people to participate.

Over 252,000 people booked a seat in the Facebook petition. There were 291 million social media views with celebrities as well as common people supporting the cause. 84,000 emails were sent to the airlines directly from our website.

In just 2 months, the Federal Government included the airport in the Aviation Regional Plan, investing US$ 9.1 million in renovations. And, on March, 22nd, 2014, Passaredo Airlines landed its first commercial flight in Barretos. The Flight Against Cancer had been created and the Barretos Cancer Hospital’s relevance had been corroborated.

We had the chance to not only extol the hospital but also change the life of thousands of its patients forever. But that is not a goal that can be reached with just a campaign. We needed the entire country demanding this flight. It was fundamental for our cause to have a strong activation power and extremely high levels of engagement.